Then, I notice something. The golden dragon clearly has strength, from the way he twitches his body when he lashes. The kind of blows I suspect will level houses. Yet... the golden one doesn't seem to be impacting with his blows. It's hard to discern, but it does look as if he's deliberately holding himself back. Same with the gray dragon. I've seen how the gray strikes. He ravages his opponent mercilessly, engaging in dirty, grappling tactics, instead of long, drawn out fights.
They are like actors, giving a good show, but pulling all the punches. When the gray lands a blow on the golden's flank, the golden howls in agony – yet somehow, that agony seems manufactured to me. Insincere.
The more I watch, the more I come to understand. The golden is throwing the fight. He intends for the gray to win.
Why?
When the golden doesn't block a fifth blow to his face, the match is over. The crowd scream and roar rapturously, except for the observant ones, who also noticed that something was up with that fight. How could they not?
My father happily stands up in his box, using the royal mage to help amplify his voice across the grounds, congratulating the challenger. Offering his daughter's hand as the ultimate prize. The crowd falls silent at the announcement, and the gray lumbers across the arena, his neck stretched towards me. Now I see the glimmer of purple eyes in his face. Purple? What an odd color. He likely has that same color back in his human form. A gray haired man with violet eyes.
I stare down at my new fate, wondering why the golden threw it so that this beast could win.
A bone deep shiver goes through my body. Nothing will ever be the same again.
From now on, I'm a dragon's princess.
And I'm princess to what seemed like the most savage dragon of all.
Chapter Two
When I'm taken, it's in the dragon's talons. I'm forced to fly over a vast landscape, skimming over the castles, the mansions and estates that decorate the wealthy kingdom of Provosia. The world changes then to forests, lakes and rivers, and tall, foreboding mountains – which also happens to be the place that the gray is flying me to.
It's an uncomfortable ride, even if I'm bundled up for protection against the winds. I'd obviously rather not be here at all, but it's not only beggars or can't be choosers, it's princesses as well. The dragon doesn't say anything the whole time he's carrying me, which makes me wonder if he can't speak in his beast form. Not that I know anything when it comes to them.
Not that any humans seem to, despite us having this deal with them for half a millennium. Which is a little odd, come to think of it. Why don't we know anything? Have the dragons never bothered sharing their secrets, or did we never bother to learn?
Either way, I'm soon close to a gnarled range of mountains, which have a kind of black morass hemming them in like an oversized moat. I can almost imagine the stench emanating from the morass, from the twisted trees and mangroves and bog creatures that linger within the roots. When the gray touches down, he holds one arm out, creating a lurching walk as he stands outside a cave with the symbol of a purple crescent moon upon it. He presses his other claws into an indent perfectly molded to his shape, rearing on his hind legs to do so, and the stone door rolls open, admitting us in. I hear the screech of other dragons, including the golden as he flies a short distance behind us, hovering in an uncertain way some hundred or so feet above.
Watching us?
Through the door is a vast catacomb of tunnels, all wide enough for dragons to pass through, all lit up by magical orbs, which drift lazily in the tunnels like fireflies. It creates an eerie effect. The gray lurches forward, clearly knowing where he's going. Inside the castle, we have all our needs attended to. Here, I suspect, it will be a different story.
He turns left twice, then a right, and heads straight forward to what I presume is his section of the caves. When we finally drop off, he hurls me onto a soft, black quilted bed, where I bounce on it in indignation, barely managing to keep myself from falling off. I almost scream when I see knobbly goblins skittering about the place, which has a lot of human sized facilities within it. The goblins are about four feet high, with long, pointed noses with warts upon them. They have pointed ears, and wear little blue caps upon their heads. Upon seeing me, they get excited, and instantly start swarming around me.
“Yes, yes! Master has brought back a princess. Master has won,” one goblin chatters. A female one, presumably his wife, smacks him upon his nose.
“Won't solve master's problem.” She glares at the goblin next to her. I see the gray move away, shrink into human form, and disappear into what I guess is the bathroom. He doesn't even bother speaking to me.
“Problem?” I ask, because if I'm going to be here, surrounded by goblins, I want to understand exactly what it is I'll be facing.
The female goblin scrutinizes me for a moment. “Master Ash needs a princess. He needs to produce an heir soon, or he will lose his throne to his younger brother.”
Three things I've learned from this. Dragons have a royal family. The gray is called Ash. And he's first in line to the throne. A prince of the catacombs? The mountains? The boggy marsh?
“That's standard,” I say. “Heirs need their own heirs. Or the line will die with him.” But overriding him in favor of his brother? That's odd.
“Yes, yes,” The sour yellow male goblin says, scratching at his cap. “But you see... master Ash is in danger of having the throne inheritance taken away from him by his father, and his brother. They say...”
“They don't say!” The female goblin yells at her companion, bulbous yellow nose quivering. “It's not rumors! It's true! We know!”
“That's quite enough, Meldin. Gon.” Ash walks back into the room, and for the first time, I see him properly, as he fixes his gaze upon the female goblin. Meldin is likely her name. Goblins tend to end female names with in, males with on. Unisex names belong to the rest of the vowels.
Ash has intense purple eyes. And, to my surprise, he doesn't look old at all. His beard is neatly trimmed, revealing a strong, square jawline. His nose has a narrow bridge, a point to the end. Bushy eyebrows support an aristocratic face.
He looks like a prince. He's actually handsome. The surprise wriggles in my gut. I continue trailing my eyes over his body, to wear he adorns a neat, red lined tailcoat. Muscles bulge out of him, almost too tight for his clothes.
Fuck. I didn't expect that. Would have been far easier to fit my narrative of dragons being monsters if they looked like hideous, crippled old men.
Meldin stands her ground at the prince's accusing tone, folding her spindly arms. “Prince! Begging yer pardon, but she ganna know anyway.”
“I assure you, I'll be fine,” Ash tells the goblin. “Though you can tell her what you like – when I'm not in. I'll rather not have to listen to a litany of all my perceived flaws.”
To my surprise, Meldin grins. I didn't expect that casual treatment. I expected him to severely punish his servant for speaking out of turn. Instead, they seem to have some kind of rapport with one another. “The medicine you gave our daughter is helping lots, prince. She'll be right as rain.”
Ash nods. “Good. You may prepare food. Get the others to prepare a bath for our princess.”
“Pardon me, Ash, but do you even know her name?” Meldin asks. In spite of myself, I start smirking at the plucky female goblin's manner.
“No,” he says. Well, at least he's honest. “Nor do I particularly care. She is little more than a means to an end.”
Okay, maybe too honest. I scowl. Meldin sighs, then turns to me. “What's your name, lovey?”
“Alera,” I say. Meldin and Gon nod.
“Pretty name. Ash, say her name. Make sure you remember it.”
“I don't see – fine. Alera. Happy?”
“He's never had a proper mother,” Meldin whispers loudly to me. Which defies the point of a whisper, since everyone can hear it. “She's the kind too busy with affairs of state, and setting things on fire. Lucky he got me though
.”
“Meldin, please.” It's obvious Ash's leniency is nearing its limits. Meldin and Gon scamper off.
So, dragons have goblin servants. And Ash, unlike my father, brother and mother, allows his servants to talk to him, to even suggest things. Or maybe he would have been the same, but it might be hard trying to shut up someone like Meldin.
I don't care, however, for the fact he quite blatantly states that I'm nothing more for him than a means to an end. It doesn't sit right with me.
“I better not be a means to an end,” I say. The boldness of my tone makes him examine me sharply. “I don't even want to be here in the first place.”
“I don't want you here, either,” Ash hisses, all calm in his deep voice gone. He nears me, and I see his muscles ripple with that movement. “But you're here. And you will do what I say. You'll obey me as well, and help out the goblin servants around the place.”
I splutter indignantly. “You expect me to do servant's work? I'm a princess!”
He smiles, but there's no warmth in it. Icy fingers slip over my spine. “All dragons expect their princesses to do servants work. Because we own you, mind, body and soul. And,” he says, close enough to reach and touch me, “if I wish you to spread your legs, you'll do it, and be glad.” His mouth hovers next to my ear. “And I'll fuck everything out of you.”
The bold statement makes my cheeks flare crimson, my heart double its speed, and a nervous lump wedge in my throat.
“Don't forget. I own you.” His teeth nip at my ear, before he withdraws, those cold purple eyes still fixed upon me. The heat continues to radiate through my body, and I feel like I have to fan my face. By the Gods. I didn't expect those words to slip out of his mouth. Words that belong to prostitutes, lower people who hold no control or dignity over their bodies. People without manners. Lowborn people not trained in matters of the court, or how to hold a fork properly and cut with a knife, and place them together at the end.
It's beneath me. All this is beneath me. And for some fucking reason, a part of my silken panties has become damp.
Another thing I didn't expect. Mentally, I start accessing why I'm reacting this way. Is it his authority? That confidence and expectation that people will do what he says?
I don't know. But there's something about his mannerism which contributes to this. I suspect that when push comes to shove, there's nothing I can do. Not in the middle of these ugly mountains, surrounded by marsh and forest and rolling hills. Drat. I really should have sought flying spells, shouldn't I? Or maybe used my considerable wealth to procure an enchantment that makes me capable of flying.
I feel a little bit like an idiot right now. And whatever this prince says, I have a feeling I want to drill Meldin for an answer. As soon as possible. For now, I'm sent on my way to the bathroom, where three different goblins are happily preparing my bath. They speak in gobbledegook, so I don't understand a word they're saying. They do, however, give me snide glances, and then burst out into giggles, which confuses me.
A stout male one starts explaining to me how to run a bath, which I find plain insulting. I might not know many practical things, due to being a princess, but I do know how to run my own bath. It's not a challenging thing to learn.
“Do you want us to gather seamstresses together to stitch identical versions of this dress, princess?” One goblin asks, now holding the folds of my dress in his four fingered hand. “Quite lovey material, this.”
“Quite lovey indeed,” I say, imitating his slang. The goblin grins. “In this size, yes. But I don't care for having the same design. It's uncomfortable.” I indicate the hoop that bubbles around my butt. “And hardly practical, I imagine, if I end up scrubbing the floors like the prince expects me to.”
I expect them to make some kind of crude joke, and brace myself for it, but it doesn't come. I figure now, since the bathroom is shut off from the main cavern, I might be able to ask some more questions regarding the nature of their surly prince.
This group isn't quite so forthcoming like Meldin, though the smallest one, probably three feet to the other's four, says, “He's got something wrong with him, the prince.”
The other goblins immediately start shushing him, and I'm left more confused than ever. Something wrong with him? What in Provosia could be wrong. Aside from him being a dragon.
Reluctantly, I get into the bath. I know I'm being prepared. For all intents and purposes, I am the dragon's princess, and it's my duty to obey my husband. Even if our, uh, marriage ritual isn't quite the same.
But if the husband is a dragon?
Even if the husband is a dragon. My father and all his advisers and everyone else who supported the ancient tradition state so.
Naked, I slide inside the now ready bath, and a female goblin now gets a sponge, determined to scrub and wash me, despite my protests. “It's my duty,” she squeaks. “I won't hear you saying otherwise.”
I have to sit there in the warm water, and have those little goblin hands washing my hair, and rubbing scented soap all over my body. I get embarrassed when she scrubs at my breasts and between my thighs, but she acts like it's no big deal at all, which helps me to feel less embarrassed. In the waters, my long red hair spills over my breasts like red tentacles, and I sigh, thinking about my new future. Stuck in stuffy caves. A dragon prince who has something apparently wrong with him. And one who has whispered in my ear that he intends to fuck me senseless.
My body has been untouched by a man's hands. Tonight, it seems, I'll be experiencing the loss of my virginity with my new, delightful husband.
The one who the golden dragon seemed to have forfeited the fight to. Why?
Had they reached an agreement that Ash would win the princess, if they both reached the final?
Either they must be friends, or Ash owns the other dragon in some aspect.
I examine my naked body in the mirror once the goblin's finished cleaning me, checking my wide hips, my alabaster skin, my blue eyes. The body of a woman my family sold in exchange for wealth. I was born as an object. Born to be used.
And I hate it.
All I want, somehow is to take charge of my own fate. But tonight will not be that night. I close my eyes, and think again of the shiver that went through me at that prince's growling, sexual promise. I let it fill me with that faint tickle of desire.
If he's not an ignorant brute, I might be able to get more out the sex than expected. I... I may be a virgin. But I have read... a lot of books upon the matter of sex. Books ranging from dry, anatomical recounts of how sex should only be used for reproduction, to other counts where people do things that my mother and father would be squeamish at. I've read whore's accounts of their clients, the types of people they like and hate.
I've asked my servants, the less timid of them, to tell me what they like about sex. The average populace, though, shares the same mentality as my dry, clinical textbook. That it's for reproduction, and it's not supposed to be fun. I've read up on rape, and how people experience rape fantasies, even though they'd likely not enjoy it happening to them in real life.
Then there was that one book, buried under all the others. Pleasurable Pain. The things I saw in that book, since it came with illustrations, have still stamped themselves upon my mind today. Women being blindfolded. Women tied up, whipped, and licked by another woman. My face had flared red for hours after finding out that particular fact. After all, where exactly do you expect a princess to learn anything about sex? The servants don't feel it's their place to tell us, nor do they really understand themselves. I'm not allowed to go and visit someone who does know about it, because they're considered as uncouth and sinful. And my parents merely state it as being a duty, a necessary thing.
All I have left in the end is my books. Whatever ones I can put my hands on. And I've put my hands on a few. Things where men use devices, placed into their rear. Things where candle wax is dripped onto the body, and that some people take great pleasure in verbal humiliation.
It's th
e stigma, the book says. The more forbidden something is, the more appealing it becomes to them. Knowing that they do something unacceptable to the rest of society to achieve the greatest pleasures known to the body sends a deep thrill inside. Fully surrendering to someone else and giving them trust is like a release. Those who find reasons to hate themselves, prefer to let it out in the guise of controlled verbal abuse, attacking the things they hate. Giving them a kind of freedom in itself – since in such a scenario, they learn that words no longer hold power over them.
There are many different reasons for the choices people make when it comes to sex. Pain, for example, is reserved for those who have a deep need to be punished. Then there is pain and pleasure, a lesser form of it, a reminder that all pain in the end will fade, until there is nothing left but that sweet ache.
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